August 05, 2004

Indulgence Education

The Government's teen pregnancy initiatives are not working, even by their own admission. Last week the Department of Health sent out new guidance to health practitioners re-emphasising "a young person's right to confidential sexual health guidance". This new guidance also makes explicit reference to abortion for the first time.

In other words, just so everyone is clear, parents do not need to know if their daughter under 16 is having a surigical procedure to kill their grandchild.

But anticipating that this will not be a sufficient strategy, they have a new plan. They want to start handing out condoms to 12-year-olds. The scheme will be piloted in Halifax, West Yorkshire, starting in September with a view to introducing it throughout the country.

This will mean that school curriculum for Personal, Social, and Health Education (PSHE) will need to be changed. After all, as the teenage pregnancy co-ordinator in Halifax said: “Something needed to be done to not only encourage young people to use condoms but teach them how to use them properly. We have a checklist of criteria which has to be met . . . we want to ensure the young person knows what they are doing and has made an informed choice to have sex." Currently, pupils don't learn how to put on a condom until they are 13 or 14.

Posted by david at August 5, 2004 04:40 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Luckily our local primary school has a sensible head teacher who actually asked parents to come and preview the PHSE video relating to the facts of life that is shown to the upper year ages 11 to 12. He wanted to know if we found it acceptable. I went and it was all very much simply about the facts of life, not a "go out and look for a sexual partner and then this is what you do" type sex education.
If they ever change this policy,and show explicit videos or teach "how to.." lessons, I will be taking my young daughter out of PHSE lessons as necessary.

Once my elder two were teenagers, I taught them myself about sex education because I wanted them to learn the facts *and* the moral issues involved . Not some "oh well, everything goes as long as you`re happy" garbage from an amoral standpoint.
Rant over :-)
Elizabeth

Posted by: Elizabeth at August 5, 2004 07:47 PM